Ten Days
by Sita Z
Summary: Trip and Malcolm are down with the flu, but they’ll never know how close they came to going out the airlock. Sickbay Month Entry 2008.


Disclaimer: This was written for my personal entertainment, I'm not making any money.

AN: Big thanks to Gabi for her super-quick emergency beta! I was hopelessly late with this, but thanks to her I can still post in February ;)!

Warning: Silliness ahead... after all the angst in "Doorway", I decided to stick with something light for Sickbay Month.

Hope you like it!

* * *

„I'm going to kill them."

„No, you're not."

„Yes, yes, I am. I'm going to smother them with a pillow... or accidently spill one of Phlox' toxic experiments over their dinner trays... or maybe I'll confuse the thermometer with a phase pistol and pull the trigger when I-"

"Liz!" Hoshi's eyes had widened.

"You don't know how bad it is!" Liz hit her forehead on the table, her spread hands thumping the table top. "Why is it that everyone who was born with a wiener between their legs turns into a total and utter whimp when they're sick?"

Hoshi chose not to comment on the "wiener", and patted Liz' shoulder instead. "I think it's a miscommunication thing, actually."

Liz lifted her head. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that they're not being like that on purpose. There are two things that men want, and that's food and attention. Food's important, but the crucial thing is attention. Men want attention all the time."

Liz nodded to this universal truth.

"But they can't always have it. They know that, and most of them are okay with it. Take Malcolm, for example. He can listen to an entire conversation without butting in once. But when they're sick, it's a different story, because then they feel they've got the _right_ to demand your constant, undivided attention. To them, being sick is like a coupon that says "ten days of everybody's full attention". And they'd be pretty stupid not to use up the coupon while it's still good."

"Why don't women get a coupon like that?" Liz wanted to know.

"They do," Hoshi replied. "Most don't use it, though."

Travis, who'd been suspiciously quiet up until now, stuffed the last piece of his baked potato into his mouth and dabbed a bit of cream off his chin. "And then they get all offended because people aren't paying them enough attention."

Hoshi punched him lightly on the arm. "Hey!"

Travis grinned. "It's true. But they never tell you why they're offended. They just tell you that you should know what you've done wrong, and if you don't, they sulk."

Liz sighed and turned back to her salad. "Gender wars aside, I'm not sure how much more I can take without pushing one of them or both out the airlock."

Hoshi stole a carrot from her plate. "Tell them," she said. "Men like a direct approach. Give me that," she said to Travis, and he dutifully pushed his fruit salad over so she could pluck off the maraschino cherry.

"See?" Hoshi held up the cherry before popping it into her mouth. "It works."

* * *

Trip was miserable. His head ached, his throat was sore, and there was an annoying little drop dangling from the tip of his nose that wouldn't go away no matter how often he wiped it off. He had watched all the movies on the padd Jon had brought him, including two incredibly boring water polo matches. He had tried reading, but it made him dizzy and nauseated. He had looked through some engineering schematics, but Phlox hadn't believed that they were close-ups from a science-fiction movie, and had taken the padd away. He had gone to the bathroom, but that had taken all of three minutes, and hadn't been very entertaining, either. Besides, his legs ached, and it got worse when he walked anywhere. He had even tried counting the red, blue and yellow bottles on the wall shelf, calculating the percentage of each color, but that had made his eyes hurt.

All that was left for him to do was talking to Malcolm, and that was boring, mostly because Malcolm was asleep. Or was pretending to be. Malcolm was miserable, too.

"I've been thinkin', Mal... when we go back on duty, we should have a look at those auxiliary phaser banks. If we took them off main power, we could squeeze at least 0,3 percent more out of the engine..."

There was a snore from the other bed. Damn. If Malcolm had been pretending, Trip's suggestion would have "woken" him for sure. Trip thought he'd rather to listen to an impromptu ten-minute rant about ship security than suffer one more minute of this mind-numbing boredom.

He looked around the room. He was still convinced that Phlox had banished them to the IC unit out of sheer cruelty, and not, as he'd assured them at the time, because main sickbay was so busy. "You need your peace and quiet," he had said, but Trip wasn't so sure exactly who needed the peace and quiet. Right. As if he and Malcolm were difficult patients.

He rolled over onto his side. The IC unit had to be one of the dullest rooms on Enterprise. Three bio-beds, complete with bedside tables, a locker with medical equipment, the shelf with the bottles, a door to a small bathroom, a door to main sickbay. That was it. You'd think there would be pictures on the wall, at least. Weren't doctors supposed to provide a stimulating environment for their patients?

"Hammocks would be nice," he said aloud, and to no one in particular. He wasn't talking to himself, he thought, not really; only providing verbal stimulation for his inactive mind. "Hammocks and a large vidscreen, and maybe a dart board. And a minibar."

"No bloody hammocks," a croaky voice said from the other bed. "They make me seasick. But a dart board would be nice."

Trip turned his head. Malcolm was almost buried in the large comforters Phlox had given them; only the top of his head, complete with tousled dark hair and red-rimmed eyes, peeked out.

"You're awake."

"Obviously." Malcolm sneezed, fumbled for a Kleenex and wiped his nose. "It's difficult not to be when you keep talking to yourself."

"Sorry."

Malcolm sneezed again. Trip had noticed that he always sneezed two times in a row, then tried to do it a third time and stopped in mid-sneeze (you noticed such things when you'd been cooped up with a person for three days).

"Bless you."

"Aaach-" Malcolm's third sneeze died half-way down his nose, and left him with his mouth open and his eyes squeezed shut.

"Bloody hell." Malcolm dropped back into the pillows and groaned. He hated not finishing his sneezes. "I want to die."

"I could get you a phase pistol," Trip offered.

"You wouldn't get past Phlox."

That was true. "How 'bout I whack you over the head with that cup?"

"Too messy. Besides, you might just knock me unconscious, and my head would be tormenting me even worse than this after I woke up again."

Trip considered, glad to have something he could think about, a problem to solve. "How to Kill Malcolm Reed In Six Creative Ways". "I could choke you?"

Malcolm thought about it for a while. "No," he said eventually. "I might start flailing, and you wouldn't be able to finish the job properly."

"How 'bout I drop somethin' on you?"

"What?"

Trip paused. Not an easy one, since there weren't that many things he could choose from. "The bedside table?"

"You'd have to aim carefully to bash my brains in."

"True. The locker, maybe?"

"You can't lift it that high, can you?"

"Phlox?"

Malcolm emerged from the pillows again. "That is a rather grisly way to die, don't you think?"

Trip couldn't argue that one. "Maybe you'd better stay alive for a while. I could kill you a lot easier once we're out of here."

"But then it'll be too late," Malcolm said plaintively. "I want to die now."

"But mo-om, I want to die now," Trip whined, and ducked when the box of Kleenex came flying towards him. It landed on his comforter, and he picked it up, putting it down on his table. A stack of padds toppled over and fell to the floor with a loud crash.

They both winced at the noise.

A persistent strain of the Algarian flu, Phlox had said when they'd arrived in sickbay, sneezing and in a foul mood because their subordinates had all but chased them out of their respective departments. Very persistent. At least ten days of bed rest.

Six and a half still to go. The thought didn't do much to cheer Trip up.

* * *

"Soup again?" Trip looked up from his dinner tray, and into Phlox' smiling face. "I thought you said we could have grilled cheese sandwiches tonight."

Phlox' smile didn't waver. "I said you could have cheese sandwiches if your behavior contributed positively to the recovering process. And I wouldn't say that was the case, now was it, Commander?"

So that was what he'd said. Trip had to admit he had only listened to the sandwich part. After so many soup dinners, the word alone was enough to make his mouth water. Sure, Phlox had explained why they couldn't have a lot of solid food, something about the virus affecting the gastrointestinal system. All the same, the soup diet was starting to feel like slow starvation.

"Why not?" Malcolm asked from the other bed. He would have sounded outraged if his nose hadn't been clogged up like a drainpipe; as it was, he sounded like an angry guinea pig. "We drank that awful concoction you told us to drink, we went to sleep when you said that we needed rest-"

"-and you were out of bed twice even though I said you should only get up to use the bathroom – and yes, Lieutenant, I realize it's only four minutes to the Armory and back -, you didn't allow me to apply the algae colonies even though they would be a considerable pain relief, you argued with me about the cold compresses, you had someone smuggle another padd with reports in here, you-"

Trip held up a hand. He didn't need to hear the whole list, which he knew went on and on. "Okay, okay, soup it is."

He picked up his spoon and dipped it into the steaming liquid. At least it was tomato this time. He'd seen enough resequenced chicken soup to last him for a life time.

"It is very interesting, actually," Phlox said.

"What is, doc?" Trip asked when Malcolm said nothing. The Englishman had obviously decided to sulk in silence.

"Human adults seem to revert to a child-like state when they're sick. The males at least, according to Crewman Cutler. They respond rather effectively to the concept of withheld privileges in case of misbehavior, and are easily appeased when they're given small favors in return for "being good". Fascinating."

Trip decided to do a little sulking himself, not commenting on Phlox' "fascinating" observation. Liz should be talking. He'd had to call her three times before she had found the time to bring him an extra blanket. And his feet _had_ been freezing.

They finished their sandwich-less dinner and watched gloomily as Phlox took the dishes away.

"Can we have sandwiches later?" Trip tried to negotiate. The soup had been very... soupy, and he realized he really wanted that sandwich. "We could share one, how 'bout that?"

Phlox shook his head. "Maybe tomorrow, Commander. If your behavior contributes positively-"

"-contributes positively to the recovering process, yeah yeah." Trip turned onto his side, away from the doc. He knew that Phlox would go to the messhall once he was done here, and treat himself to a nice, big dinner of steak and vegetables, while his patients were wasting away in sickbay.

"I'm glad we have an understanding," the doctor said mildly, dimming the lights before he left.

"Bloody doctors," Malcolm said when the door had closed, but he said it very quietly. No one had determined for sure just how good Denobulan hearing was, but Phlox had been known to hear patients get out of bed in the adjoining room with the door closed.

"He could've let us have those sandwiches," Trip said. "He can't starve us. It's against regulations."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Malcolm said. "He was positively sadistic when I had to do physical therapy after I got pinned to the hull by the Romulan mine. He'd squeeze my foot and twist it, like that-" He demonstrated with his hands. "And then he'd get out that little hammer, and start whacking my knee, bang bang, until I'd start yelling, and then he'd tell me that it wasn't so bad."

"I guess you need that kinda mindset to become a doctor."

Malcolm nodded darkly. "And that wasn't all. I won't tell you what he did with the bloodworms."

Trip hoped that, true to his word, he wouldn't, but of course Malcolm did. "He said they'd come out again. And they did, right where "the sun don't shine", as you would put it."

"Malcolm..."

"I nearly had a heart attack when-"

"Malcolm!"

"Sorry."

Trip tried very hard not to dwell on anything to do with bloodworms, or their ways of entering and exiting the human body. "So, what do we do with the rest of the evening?"

Malcolm shrugged. "Sleep?"

"I'm not really tired, after sleepin' all afternoon."

"Yes, and sawing down a forest while you were out. I couldn't get a minute's rest with all that noise."

"You snore, too."

"I don't."

"You do, too. I had to get up twice last night to poke you so you'd shut up."

"That isn't-"

"How 'bout we play a game?" Trip interrupted before Malcolm had a chance to get obsessed with the snoring question.

"A game?" Malcolm sounded suspicious at best. "What do you have in mind?"

"You ever play Truth or Dare as a kid?"

"I don't think I did."

"Well, it's pretty much like the name says. You can either answer a question or do a dare."

"What sort of dare?"

Trip grinned. "I'll think of somethin'. So, you wanna play?"

Malcolm tilted his head, considering. "All right," he said then. "But I'm not stuffing my pyjamas into my mouth, or any other articles of clothing."

"I never said-" Trip broke off, realization dawning. "You did play it before!"

Malcolm's ears reddened. "I might have. I don't really remember."

Privately, Trip thought that Malcolm remembered very well, and wanted to avoid telling Trip about the clothes dare.

"Okay then, your turn first. Truth or Dare?"

Malcolm frowned. "Why do I have to go f-"

Trip coughed, muttering something that sounded like "pajamas", and Malcolm shut up quickly. "Right. My turn first." He paused. "I'll take Truth. I don't really want to get up right now."

"Why d'you think I was gonna make you get up?"

"Well, there's not much I can do in bed, is there?"

Trip sniggered. Malcolm was so easy. "Oh, I wouldn't be so hard on myself. Some say the English are kinda dull in that department, but -"

A pillow came flying, hitting him smack in the face. Trip tucked it under his arms and grinned.

"But there are always exceptions, right?"

Trip decided that puce wasn't the best color for Malcolm, especially not combined with the mint-green sickbay pajamas. "Okay okay, keep your shirt on. That is, unless I decide you gotta eat it."

Malcolm's glare was definitely set to kill now. "I think I shall be reconsidering my decision as to who is going to kill whom, Commander."

"Oh, you wouldn't kill me. Anyway, you picked Truth, right?"

Malcolm crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I suppose I did."

"Ri-ight..." Trip considered, determined to make the most of this. There wasn't often he got Malcolm to answer any question about his person, or, in fact, anything not related to duty. "I've got one. Have you ever been arrested?"

He hadn't expected it, but Malcolm looked instantly guilty. "Yes," he said reluctantly. "I have."

Trip waited, but Malcolm obviously had no intention of continuing.

"C'mon, you can't stop there."

Malcolm sighed. "I was fifteen. I was out with a few mates, one of whom had just learned that he'd failed a major exam. We decided that he needed to get drunk."

Trip had a hard time biting back his emerging grin. "But none of you were old enough to buy the stuff."

"Exactly. Well, there was this grocery warehouse near our school..."

"You didn't!"

Malcolm shook his head. "I don't know what got into us. We decided to see if they had any beverages stored inside... anything we could "borrow". We'd managed to get one of the windows open when the caretaker caught us."

Trip tried to imagine a teenage Malcolm getting busted for breaking and entering, and found that he couldn't do it. "What happened?"

"He called the police. They called our parents. They hit the roof. I was grounded for five months."

"Five months!"

Malcolm sighed. "It was either that, or giving up my after-school job. My father let me choose. And I couldn't afford not having that job, since I was saving for college."

Trip knew that, as a teenager, he wouldn't have survived five months of lockdown, but he could see Malcolm doing it. He imagined Malcolm had been pretty self-sufficient even then.

"Whew. Good one."

"Your turn, then," Malcolm said, perking up a little. "Truth or Dare, Commander?"

Trip thought about it. "Truth," he said then. He knew Malcolm would try to get back at him for his smart-ass comment of before, and he wasn't in the mood to eat his pajamas.

He didn't particularly like the smirk his answer elicited on Malcolm's face. "Lovely. - If you could have a threesome with any two people on Enterprise, who would you pick?"

Trip, noticing that his jaw had dropped to his chin, snapped his mouth shut. And here he'd been thinking Malcolm would ask him if he'd ever tried French fries with mayonnaise.

"Malcolm!"

"What?" Malcolm gave him an innocent look. "It's a perfectly valid question."

Trip rubbed his nose. No backing out of this one, he could see that. "I'll hafta think about that one. T'Pol and Hoshi, a'course, but then, the two of them might be a bit... much, you know what I mean?"

Malcolm's smirk grew wider. "And I thought English people were supposed to be "dull"."

Trip buried his face in his hands. He should have seen that one coming. "Right," he said then. "So, not Hoshi and T'Pol both." He thought about it for a while, then shook his head. "The thing is, I can't decide."

"Which one of them to give up?"

"No, I can't decide if I'd like Travis and T'Pol, or you and Hoshi better."

It was Malcolm's turn to close his mouth with a snap. Trip grinned. "What, you think I really believe that crap about the English? You know, I think I'll take you and Hoshi. Gives me the advantage of bein' the tallest."

"I'm not going to ask you what that "advantage" would involve." Despite his caustic tone, Malcolm was grinning, and Trip wondered if he'd ever seen the Armory Officer in such a playful mood. Maybe Phlox' painkillers had unexpected side effects the doc hadn't told them about.

"All right then. I'll take Truth, again."

Trip had hoped he would. "Worst date ever. Tell me all about it."

Malcolm rolled his eyes. "You don't really want to know."

"Spill it."

"It wasn't her fault, really. She said she knew this little seafood restaurant at the bay. Turned out to be a boat. And the seas were quite heavy that night. I had prawns..." Malcolm grimaced. "Not a good combination."

Trip could imagine. "You..."

"Over the side, thank God. The downside was that all the other guests were watching."

"Ouch."

"Quite. She took me back to the shore, I'll give her that."

"And then?"

"She said she had to go home and feed her dog."

Trip tried, and failed, to contain a chuckle. "Not your finest moment."

"Not really."

They were silent for a while, and Trip felt himself beginning to edge towards sleep, when Malcolm spoke again. "Truth or Dare?"

"Truth," Trip replied. It couldn't really get much worse than last time. Although he had to admit that the resulting mental images were... intriguing.

He expected a question along the same lines as before, but what came was something entirely different. "If you had to listen to only three songs for the rest of your life, what would be the worst choice you could make?"

Trip blinked. "Is throwin' myself out the airlock an option?"

Malcolm shook his head. "Three songs. The rest of your life. Worst choice."

"Okay." Trip paused. "Definitely "You Can't Hurry Love". The original or any of the covers. I hate that song. I'd be out that airlock after five minutes."

"I see your point."

"Lollipop."

"Is that a song?"

"Like nails on a chalkboard. No, there's one that's worse."

"Which would be?"

"My Heart Will Go On. From that twentieth century Titanic movie. If I had to listen to that for the rest of my life, I'd volunteer as a live target for your practice sessions."

"I'll have to look it up in the data base." The smirk returned to Malcolm's face, then faded, turning into a grimace.

"What?" Trip asked.

"I just thought of my worst choice."

"Hit Me With Your Best Shot?" Trip joked.

"Close, but not quite. It's actually Spirit In The Sky. I've never listened to a song that grates on my nerves quite like that one."

"_When I die and they lay me to rest_," Trip started singing, and broke off when another pillow came flying. Phlox must have left Malcolm with quite a supply.

"Don't! Or it'll get stuck in your head and I'll have to listen to you singing it for the rest of the week. And I don't think I can survive that."

Trip leaned back on his pillows (by now, he had quite a heap of them) and crossed his arms behind his head. He noticed that he wasn't even that sore anymore. Or maybe he was enjoying himself too much to waste much thought on it.

"Truth or Dare, Loo-tenant?"

"Dare," Malcolm said, and Trip grinned. As it happened, he had just thought of the perfect dare for Malcolm.

"I dare ya to go to the galley and bring us back some sandwiches."

Malcolm's head snapped around. "What?"

"You heard me. A coupla sandwiches, one for each of us. Bacon and cheddar for me."

Malcolm looked at him, his eyes narrowing. For a moment, Trip thought he was going to refuse, but then Malcolm nodded curtly. "Fine. But you're coming with me."

"What? It's your turn!"

Malcolm gave him a pointed look. "If I'm risking my life to get you a sandwich, the least you can do is accompany me."

"But..." Trip trailed off. He could see that he wasn't going to get out of this, no matter what he said.

"I'm in charge of this operation, naturally," Malcolm added.

Trip sighed.

* * *

"I can't believe Chef hasn't left anyone to stand guard. Getting in here was as easy as anything."

"Stand guard?" Trip peered down the corridor, making sure that no one was following them, then pulled his head back so that the galley door could close behind him. He turned around to Malcolm. "This isn't exactly a secured area."

"It should be." Darkly, Malcolm eyed Chef's spice rack, where salt and oregano were lined up next to Denobulan fire pepper. "Leaving supplies unguarded is playing into the hands of potential saboteurs."

Trip paused, trying to determine whether Malcolm was being serious or not. "You've got a serious problem, Malcolm," he said when he'd decided that Malcolm wasn't joking.

"I do, actually. Bloody door won't budge." Malcolm was pushing the button that should have opened the door to Chef's larder. "He's got it code-protected."

"Use the security override."

"I tried. He's found a way to bypass it."

"What!" Bypassing the security override wasn't child's play, not with Malcolm's paranoid system of randomly changing digits. "Lemme see that."

Trip knelt down next to panel. His vision blurred momentarily, his knees reminding him with a painful stab just why he should be tucked up in bed, and not sneaking barefoot into the galley. Ignoring the pain, he pulled the panel off the wall. "So that's how he did it. Clever sonofabitch."

He deactivated two of the power distributors inside. "There, that should do it."

Malcolm seemed to expect additional booby traps – one never knew with Chef – but the door slid aside easily enough, and no trapdoor opened under their feet.

"Look at that," Trip grinned as they entered the sanctum sanctorum. This was sandwich heaven, and definitely worth the trouble of coming here. Malcolm didn't waste any time admiring the heavily laden shelves, and made a beeline for the corner where Chef kept his supply of sliced bread. He took out four slices, and expertly closed the package again so that it looked almost untouched.

"Here you go," he said, handing Trip two of the slices. "Be quick. Phlox will notice that we're gone."

They spent five happy minutes raiding the shelves for anything sandwich-worthy (Trip pulled a face at the cucumber slices Malcolm added to his corned beef), and had just started putting the ingredients back into the cooling units when there was an outraged gasp from the door.

Ketchup-dripping sandwich in hand, Trip turned around. The Captain, Phlox, and Liz Cutler were standing in the doorway, their expression ranging from indignation to goggle-eyed disbelief.

Liz Cutler was the first to speak, but her comment didn't make a lot of sense. "Hoshi's right. It's all about food and attention."

* * *

"I can't believe they took them away."

There was no answer from the other bed. Trip sighed. Malcolm had almost died from mortification at being caught red-handed (or rather, sandwich-handed) by the Captain and Chief Medical Officer, and was obviously still going through horrific scenarios of court martials and time spent in the brig.

"I mean, it was only a coupla sandwiches, and there was no reason to let them go to waste."

There was a pained sigh from the other bed. "Trip, do you ever think of anything besides food?"

Frowning, Trip rolled over onto his side to face Malcolm. "Don't tell me you weren't lookin' forward to somethin' other than soup."

Malcolm shook his head in despair. "I can't believe I went along with your hare-brained idea! Truth or Dare, indeed!"

"Aw, c'mon, like you didn't want that sandwich."

"I wouldn't have snuck into the galley to steal one!"

"I didn't exactly twist your arm. You coulda said no."

There was a moment of icy silence, then Malcolm gave in and sighed. "I suppose so. But I've noticed that I always seem to get into that kind of trouble when I'm with you."

"Shoe fits on the other foot, too."

Malcolm glared at him. "I don't get you in trouble."

"Really? How 'bout the time you said you bet I couldn't hit that rock with one shot?"

"That was a figure of speech! But of course, you Yanks have to take everything at face value."

"I hit it at first try, though."

"That you did. Lucky for you the explosion was only a small one."

"I remember somebody congratulatin' me on the symmetry of the hole it left."

"Must have been Travis."

"Must've been." Trip grinned. Malcolm's prissy mood was dissipating, he could see that. The subject of explosions tended to have that effect; he'd found that out long ago.

"So, wanna play again?"

"I don't think so." Malcolm lay back on his pillow with a sigh. "Phlox did suggest that we should try to get some rest."

That, Trip thought, easily qualified as the understatement of the century. Phlox's "suggestion" had been larded with threats as to what would happen should either of them dare get out of bed again. Jon had backed him up, of course, ordering them back to sickbay and delivering a little off-the-cuff speech on conduct unbecoming senior officers. Trip wished he hadn't taken the sandwiches, as well.

He closed his eyes. His head was giving him hell again, not to mention his sore joints. Walking to the galley and back hadn't exactly helped his temperature, either. Maybe getting some sleep wasn't such a bad idea, after all.

* * *

"No."

"Mr. Reed, you are being unreasonable. This is a perfectly safe medical procedure-"

"No. Get it away from me."

"Mr. Reed..."

"No."

Slowly coming awake, Trip opened his eyes, only to squint them shut again. The light was turned to its lowest setting, but it was still too bright, stabbing his tired eyes. The headache seemed to have worsened while he'd slept, and was roaring angrily behind his forehead. His sheets felt clammy and uncomfortably hot.

"I assure you, Lieutenant, you will feel a lot better if you let me-"

"I said no."

Trip rolled over, a wave of dizziness washing over him with the movement. When his vision cleared again, he saw Phlox standing next to Malcolm's bed, a wheeled equipment table beside him. Trip couldn't quite make out what was on it, but Malcolm didn't seem to like it, whatever it was. He had pulled his blankets to his chin, and was glaring at Phlox out of dazed, red-rimmed eyes.

"What's goin' on?" Trip asked. His voice was little more than a croak, and it hurt to talk.

Phlox sighed when he saw that his other patient was awake as well. "Mr. Reed's temperature is spiking, but I can't seem to convince him that a cool sponge bath is the best method for bringing his fever down."

"No."

Malcolm retreated further under his blankets, shaking his head, and Trip realized that it was mostly the fever talking. Malcolm was stubborn and less than fond of any medical procedure, but this outright refusal was strange even for him.

With a touch of guilt, Trip wondered if their little stroll to the galley might have caused Malcolm's temperature to go up like this.

"Mal, let the doc do his thing," he said, trying for a soothing tone. "You'll feel all better then, I promise."

"No. I'm tired. I want to go back to sleep."

Trip felt sorry for Malcolm, but he couldn't help grinning a little at that. The Armory Officer sounded like a petulant five-year-old.

"It's only going to take a few minutes," Phlox tried again. "As Mr. Tucker said, you'll feel a lot better afterwards."

Instead of an answer, Malcolm pulled the blanket over his head and turned away from the doctor.

"Want to sleep," Trip could hear him mutter from under the covers.

With a sigh, Phlox reached out to pull the blankets back down, and stopped in mid-movement when Trip held up a hand. If Malcolm was acting like a sick, cranky kid, logical reasoning would get the doctor nowhere, Trip knew that. But if his nephews and nieces were anything to go by, there was one thing that would work like a charm.

He mouthed something at the doctor. After a brief moment of confusion, Phlox' face lit up in understanding.

"How about we make a deal, Lieutenant," he said, loud enough so that Malcolm would be able to hear him under his self-erected barrier. "You let me give you a sponge bath, and I'll make sure to save you a piece of the cake that Chef has made."

The blankets didn't move.

"Pineapple cake, Mal," Trip said.

At that, the covers slipped aside a bit, and the top of Malcolm's head emerged. "Pineapple?"

Trip nodded. "And it's not the resequenced stuff, either."

Malcolm peered at Phlox. "You'll let me have a piece?"

The doctor nodded. "If you let me apply the sponge bath now."

Malcolm pushed the blanket down to his chin. "Promise?"

"I promise," the doctor said solemnly, and after a moment of consideration, Malcolm nodded.

"Alright then."

Malcolm was as good as his word, offering no more resistance as Phlox helped him out of his pajama top and started to sponge down his arms and chest. Trip draped an arm across his eyes. His head was threatening to explode, and someone seemed to have stuffed a piece of sandpaper down his throat, where it scratched and chafed with every breath. He stayed like this for a long time, and had almost fallen asleep again when the sound of steps approaching brought him back to awareness.

"...doc?"

Phlox raised the dripping sponge, smiling cheerfully. "Your turn, Mr. Tucker."

Trip sighed. It was turning out to be a very long ten days.

* * *

Another forkful of cake disappeared in Malcolm's mouth, and his eyes closed in an expression of pure bliss. Trip watched him sourly. He'd never seen anyone take so long to eat one small piece of pineapple cake. His own dessert had been gone in two minutes, and now he was left watching Malcolm as he ate his cake crumb by damn crumb.

Trip forced himself to look away and think of something else. Thanks to Phlox' sponge baths and a healthy dose of painkiller, they'd slept soundly through the remainder of the night, and had woken up feeling groggy but a lot better. Trip wasn't sure if Malcolm remembered how he'd hidden under his blanket refusing to let the doctor near him, but he didn't ask. Even Malcolm deserved a break when he was sick.

Or, on second thought, maybe he didn't. He still wasn't finished with that damn cake, taking hours for every bite.

"Dammit, Malcolm, it's not your last meal, y'know. Hurry up a bit."

Malcolm glanced up, and at his look of surprise Trip felt slightly guilty. He hadn't meant to sound so snappy.

"Sorry. It's just..." He trailed off. He'd been accused before of being obsessed with food, but he hated not being allowed to have a good, hearty meal once in a while. All those soup dinners were driving him crazy.

He hadn't expected it, but Malcolm smiled. "I can't speak for Phlox, but Crewman Cutler might let us have another piece."

Trip sighed. "Liz? No way."

Malcolm said nothing, but his expression was an answer in itself, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. Mercifully, he finished the rest of his cake rather quickly, hunting for each crumb on his plate before he put his dinner tray aside. Trip let out a sigh of relief. He couldn't have watched this much longer.

Soon enough, the door to the IC unit opened and Liz Cutler came in, pushing a small trolley. "All done, guys? Phlox said not to forget the nutrient drinks he..." She trailed off, and suddenly her face changed, becoming soft and sympathetic.

"Oh dear. You're not feeling so well again, are you?"

Trip followed her eyes, and couldn't quite believe what he saw. Malcolm was looking positively miserable, in a heart-breaking sort of way. Trip hadn't known that their tough, shoot-first-ask-questions-later Armory Officer had it in him to make bambi eyes, or look quite so pitiable. He had his blankets pulled up to his chin, blinking at Liz as if he had just woken up from a long sleep.

Trip understood. He slid down on his pillow as well, trying to look as sad as he could. And, surprisingly enough, it seemed to be working. Liz was all but melting right in front of their eyes.

"Is there anything I can get you guys? Another hypo for the headache, maybe?"

Trip shook his head, looking even sadder. A lady friend had told him once that with those "puppy eyes" of his, he could get away with murder. Right now, he thought he'd settle for a mere second helping of cake.

"Naw, I guess we're fine." He sighed deeply.

Malcolm followed suit, letting out an oscar-worthy sigh.

"Are you sure?" Liz went over to Malcolm's bed and felt his forehead. "Temperature seems okay to me."

She came over, brushing Trip's hair back before she felt his forehead as well. "Yours too. But you don't look too well."

Trip gave her a wan smile. "Aw, it's nothin'. Thanks for the cake, by the way."

"Yes, thank you," Malcolm added. "It was really good."

"Did you like it?" Liz brightened. "As far as I know, Chef made another one for the Gamma shift. Maybe you'd feel a little better if you had another piece?"

Trip nodded, trying not to seem too enthusiastic. "J'st a small one, though. Wouldn't want to overdo it."

Liz nodded understandingly. "Of course. I'll go and check what's left, okay?"

"That's very kind of you, Crewman," Malcolm said, with a side-glance at Trip. "Thank you."

Liz was already on the way to the door when she turned around once again, grinning at them both. "I just love it when you do that."

With that, she was gone. Trip looked at Malcolm. Malcolm looked at Trip. There was a definite red hue on the Armory Officer's face, and Trip knew that his cheeks had warmed, too.

"Now that was humiliating," Malcolm said finally.

Trip shrugged. "It worked. Good idea. I wouldn't try it on Phlox, though."

They grinned.

* * *

"Big day today, gentlemen." Phlox smiled. He seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood.

"Why is it a big day, doctor?" Malcolm asked. He was sitting up in bed, sipping tea from a large mug and reading Armory reports. Phlox had allowed them to have some paperwork brought in, and Malcolm had jumped at the occasion. Ever since, he and his stack of padds had been inseparable.

"Your temperature has been back to normal for twelve hours," Phlox replied happily. "I do not see why you shouldn't spend the remainder of your recuperation in your quarters."

"Really?" Trip flicked back his blankets, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. "Great."

Malcolm had also started to climb out of bed. "Finally."

"No visits to the Armory or Engineering yet," Phlox warned. "You're supposed to rest, drink a lot of fluids, and report back to me in eight hours so I can check your vitals. Do we have an understanding, Commander, Lieutenant?"

"Sure, doc." Trip peered under the bed, looking for his slippers.

"Of course, doctor." Malcolm had started to gather up his padds, slipping them into the pockets of his bathrobe.

"Very well then." Phlox was smiling, and Trip had the feeling that the doctor was as glad to see them go as they were to leave. "I'll see you in eight hours, gentlemen."

They trudged through main sickbay, nodding at Liz who was working at one of the computer consoles.

"Glad to see the back of us, huh?" Trip grinned, and Liz grinned back at him.

"Your backs are nice to look at, but I like your fronts, too - sirs," she tossed back, and they laughed. Ever since the cake incident, the banter between the three of them had grown increasingly raunchy, and even Malcolm didn't seem to mind.

They left sickbay, and stood in the corridor for a moment before Malcolm spoke up. "Messhall?"

"Messhall," Trip replied decidedly. "Sandwiches. Now."

They were two men on a mission.

* * *

"I knew you could do it."

"What do you mean?"

Hoshi smiled. "I knew you'd get through the ten days without shoving those two out an airlock."

Liz grinned, remembering the incident with the pineapple cake. Trip was one thing, but who'd have thought that Malcolm could look like a little lost dog?

"I got close to doing it, once or twice. But you know, I might even miss them a little. At least there was never a dull moment when they were around."

"Like when they snuck off to the galley." Travis chuckled, and Liz was sure that he'd stored this piece of information safely away to use it when the right time came.

Hoshi shook her head. "I wish I'd seen that."

Liz grinned, remembering. "They had these huge sandwiches, and were dripping barbecue sauces all over the floor."

"Someone told me the Captain threatened to lock them up in the brig."

Liz wasn't sure if Captain Archer had said anything of the sort, but it made for a good addition to her story. "He did. He was furious. And Phlox said they couldn't have anything but toast and vegetable soup for three days."

Actually, all Phlox had done was confiscate the sandwiches, but it were the details that legends were made of.

"And what about the time Malcolm smuggled a phase pistol into sickbay?"

"Did Trip really sleepwalk to Engineering?"

Liz had just leaned back in her chair to delve into her story when the comm chimed. "Phlox to Crewman Cutler."

She got up and pressed the button next to the speaker. "Cutler here."

"I'm sorry to disturb your break, Crewman, but could you come down to sickbay, please? Captain Archer and Subcommander T'Pol have just come to see me. They are sneezing rather violently, I'm afraid."

The thump as Liz' forehead hit the wall could be heard all the way down to sickbay.

The End

A sandwich for everyone who leaves a review :)!


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